It was no sort of a victory for the working class of either country. At least, any victory that came to the working class of either country was merely incidental. Great Britain whipped the Boers, but the British people did not get the gold mines and the diamond mines. The Japanese whipped the Russians, but the Japanese workingmen did not get any of the plunder for which the war was fought. The Japanese capitalists got all of the plunder. The common people of Japan were so poor, after they had fought a “successful” war against Russia, that, within six months of the termination of the war, the Mikado urged the sternest self-denial upon them as the only means of saving the country from bankruptcy. And, notwithstanding the victory of the British over the Boers, the common people of England were never before so poor as they are to-day. What is the use of blinking these facts? They are facts. Nobody can disprove them. They stand. They stand even in the face of the further fact that some wars have helped the working class. The American Revolution helped the working class of America. But the American working class would not have been in need of help if the English land-owning class who ruled the British government had not been using the government to plunder and oppress the people of America. But that is only one side of the story. Let us look at the American side. The common people of America gained something from the war. They slipped from the clutches of the English grafters. But they did not get what they were promised. Read the Declaration of Independence and see what they were promised. Read the Constitution of the United States and see what they were given. Between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States there is all the difference that exists between blazing sunlight and pale moonlight. No finer spirit was ever breathed into words than that which appears in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote it, and he wrote splendidly, though the Declaration, as it stands, is not as he first wrote it. Jefferson was so afire with the idea of liberty that his associates upon the committee that drafted the Declaration shrank from the light. They compelled him to tone down his words. But the Declaration as it stands spells Liberty with a big “L.” And, Liberty with a big “L” can be nothing but a republic in which the people, through their representatives, absolutely rule.